


wear me like a locket around your throat, (i'll weigh you down, i'll watch you choke).

by uncaringerinn



Series: romance is dead, (i shot it in the chest then in the head). [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, fistfights as foreplay, it's a party and they'll fight if they want to, jesus christ what a goddamn mess, nancy being a mom because someone has to when steve is slacking off, stacy hamilton's house is gonna be fucking trashed, that's how parties work right?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 01:37:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14321682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncaringerinn/pseuds/uncaringerinn
Summary: Nancy rolls her eyes as she fumbles with the pack of gauze, “You’re the definition of ‘doesn’t play well with others’, Billy.”“Oh, I dunno,” Billy responds, gaze landing on Steve, smirk wide and something other than friendly, “I’d say we get alongjust fine. Wouldn’t you, Harrington?”Steve stares back at Billy, disbelief wide in his pretty brown eyes. “Sure,” Steve swallows, throat bobbing because Billy is full of suchshit, “Justfuckingfine.”





	wear me like a locket around your throat, (i'll weigh you down, i'll watch you choke).

Friday night rolls around in a flush of pollen and blooming trees. Stacy Hamilton’s party, Steve decides, was a good idea. He’s cloistered in a corner with Nancy and Jonathan, drinks in hand. They’re all laughing, a little buzzed. Steve feels pleasantly fuzzy; they’ve been here for a few hours, not looking to get shitfaced, but just enjoying each other’s company.

It was a good idea, Steve thinks.

Until Billy stalks through the center of the living room, lukewarm beer dripping off his chin to slide down the bare skin of his chest, buttons of his shirt undone to the navel. Their classmates are cheering, chanting Billy’s name loud enough to overwhelm the pulse of the music. Billy wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, smiles big and wide; a king come to court.

Only he doesn’t look regal.

He looks wild.

And Steve’s stomach promptly loops itself into a knot and firmly lodges in his throat.

Steve knew Billy was probably waiting for him under the moonlight; he’d been feeling that despair well up from the pit of his soul to nest in the hollow between his ribs, but instead of going to Billy-

He came here.

_“Don’t make me hunt you down.”_

Shit.

_Shit._

Billy’s gaze slow-drags over the room and Steve can feel the way Nancy and Jonathan go stiff behind him.

When Billy spots him, sky-blue eyes meeting smooth brown, his smile goes feral, tongue lolling out past his lips. If Billy were anything other than human, he’d be frothing at the mouth.

“Harrington!” Billy calls, all false-friendly and just a little too aggressive, “Didn’t expect to find you here, _amigo_.”

They both know that’s a lie. Billy knew _exactly_ where Steve would be, tracked him down like a hound after a fox.

The party’s gone ominously quiet despite the thrum of bass oozing from the sound system; Billy and Steve are trapped in a bubble with the whole world looking on, waiting for them to burst.

They don’t disappoint.

Steve comes around the edge of the kitchen island, fingers drumming against the countertop as Billy saunters closer. They meet in the middle, caught in each other’s orbit.

“This is sad even for you, Harrington,” Billy says. He jerks his head in the direction of Nancy and Jonathan, “Don’t have any other friends so you have to hang out with your ex and the guy she dumped you for?”

“Ouch, Hargrove,” Steve sighs, bored and unimpressed, “That _really_ hurt my feelings.”

Billy’s mouth twists up at the corners, cruel and deliberate, and sneers, “You three are like some sort of freak sideshow.”

“You really enjoy making a _scene_ ,” Steve retorts, not in the mood. “Go back to your keg-stands and fake friends.”

Billy picks it up, “Sure, and you go back to playing the pathetic third-wheel to a frigid bitch and the resident creep.”

Steve stiffens, shoulders drawing tight with tension; the song switches over as the room holds a collective breath. The sound of high-strung electric guitar comes slithering out over the airwaves before dying down into something more restrained.

“ _It’s not in the way that you hold me_ ,” the speakers croon, soft and dramatic. It lights Steve’s skin on fire.

“He isn’t worth it, Steve,” Nancy says, trying to pull him back from the brink.

And in the same beat Billy digs in, all fangs and lather, intent on ripping Steve into pieces. He lowers his voice, smooth and gentle, murmurs just loud enough for Steve to hear, “What is it, Harrington? They feel sorry for you? Let you watch while he fucks her?”

Steve lets loose a slow, humorless laugh, jaw working at the hinges. He cants his head to one side, takes a step back, and digs his feet into the plush carpet of the living room floor.

“Steve,” Jonathan calls out in warning.

“ _It’s not in the way you look or the things that you say that you’ll do._ ”

Steve shifts in a single, fluid movement, and _swings_.

It catches Billy in the ridge of his cheekbone, splits Steve’s knuckles like cheap paper. He reaches forward, twines his fingers in Billy’s curly, golden hair, and hits him again.

Billy laughs, sounding more like a crazed shout, and knocks Steve’s fist to the side when he goes for a third punch. Billy’s mouth bleeds red, over lips, down the drop of his chin. With Steve’s hand locked in his hair, Billy’s head is craned back; he blinks up at Steve, sucks at teeth stained bloody with the flat of his tongue. “Now who’s causing a scene, pretty boy?”

It’s enough for Steve to falter, to wonder what the _fuck_ he’s doing, and it’s all Billy needs. Billy slams his fist into Steve’s gut with a vicious sucker punch, and Steve stumbles, but he doesn’t fall. It sends a shock of pain spiraling outward, echoing in his sternum, in his ribs, in his goddamn spine, but Steve stays upright.

He stays upright even when Billy’s knuckles come cracking against his cheek, aching throb bursting across his skull. Billy catches him by the fabric of his shirt, yanks him forward. “Come on, Harrington. I expected _better_.”

Steve sees him pull back, ready for another swing, but Billy never lands the blow. Instead-

Instead, Nancy has Billy’s wrist caught in a steel-fingered grip, looking _furious_ ; her other hand comes out, lays flat against Steve’s chest and firmly shoves him back.

“That’s _enough_.” Her voice is low, authoritative in way Steve has never heard, in a way that makes Billy grin like the wicked boy that he is.

There’s a crow of booing, classmates upset that their entertainment has been taken away. Nancy doesn’t care, isn’t here to please people. She sends the crowd of students a sharp glare, cold and lethal. “Mind your own business,” She snaps, watching as they slowly turn their backs on the absolute mess Steve and Billy have made of themselves.

She rounds on both of them, one hand still clutching Billy’s wrist while the other curls in Steve’s shirt, “You two are _unbelievable_.”

“Yeah,” Billy rolls his eyes, “What _ever_.” He tries to pull his arm from Nancy’s grasp, but she holds strong.

“Bathroom, the both of you,” she instructs, tilting her head in the direction she wants them to go.

Billy, uncooperative as ever, yanks on his arm again, “No one tells me what to do, Wheeler.”

“Jesus, Billy. Would you shut the fuck up already?” Steve interjects, trying to untangle Nancy’s fingers from his polo.

Nancy twists Billy’s wrist, makes him hiss, “I’ll _break_ it, golden boy. Try me.” She pulls Steve around, shirt coming untucked from his jeans; he stumbles a little where his shoes snag on the carpet. She gives them both a shove towards the hallway, “Bathroom, _now_.”

Steve puts his hands up in a show of surrender, says, “Jesus, Nance. _Okay_ ,” at the same time Billy sneers, “You’re fucking crazy, Wheeler.”

But they both start moving.

Steve sits on the lip of the bathtub next to Billy while Nancy rummages around in the cabinets, door shut, but not locked. They can hear muffled shouting from out in the living room; the party raging on in the aftermath.

“Hey, won’t your voyeuristic weirdo boyfriend be wondering what the fuck you’re doing with us?” Billy starts, rubbing at the dried blood coating his lips, eyeing Steve while he does it.

“Shut up, Billy.” Nancy just sounds exasperated now; she’s found some clean washcloths but can’t find a first aid kit. She turns to face them, “I’m going to find some gauze and antiseptic. Do _not_ get in another fistfight.”

Billy smiles.

Steve scowls.

Nancy leaves the bathroom door open so she can hear if they start a ruckus.

They both sit in silence. Billy clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, irritation clear in the line of his shoulders; he leans back, lets out a long, dramatic sigh, “You know, none of this woulda happened if you had just done what I told you to do.” He levels Steve with a look that sends fear and arousal shooting through his veins, twisting in tandem. “And you know what happens when people disobey me.” Billy’s lips pull back over his teeth, slow, jaw clenching.

Steve doesn’t have time to respond; Nancy comes shuffling in through the doorway, pack of sterile gauze, medical tape, and a fresh tube of Neosporin cradled in her arms. They watch as she dumps the supplies on the countertop before squeezing herself between the gap of their thighs and turning the faucet of the tub on, just a little warm.

“Stick your hands in,” She murmurs, not waiting for either of them to obey, just gently grabbing their respective wrists and guiding them under the flow of water.

Steve winces, Billy stares at where their hands touch under the faucet.

Nancy moves back to the counter, says, “I don’t understand why you two can’t get along.”

Billy doesn’t take his eyes off their hands, “I get along with everyone, Wheeler.” Arrogant and dismissive.

Nancy rolls her eyes as she fumbles with the pack of gauze, “You’re the definition of ‘doesn’t play well with others’, Billy.”

“Oh, I dunno,” Billy responds, gaze landing on Steve, smirk wide and something other than friendly, “I’d say we get along _just fine_. Wouldn’t you, Harrington?”

Steve stares back at Billy, disbelief wide in his pretty brown eyes. “Sure,” Steve swallows, throat bobbing because Billy is full of such _shit_ , “Just _fucking_ fine.”

Nancy looks up, blinks at both of them, “If you can call beating the shit out of each other ‘getting along’, then yes, you two are _best friends_.” She nods for them to move their hands out of the water, grabs Billy’s first, dries it carefully.

Steve watches her slather too much antiseptic over the gashes on his knuckles, skin bruising in a bright bloom of midnight-blue, mirroring Steve’s own. She takes her time wrapping his hand, calm and deliberate.

Billy never takes his eyes off Steve.

Nancy is halfway through dressing Steve’s own knuckles before Billy finally breaks the silence, voice low and volatile, “Wheeler, I need a minute with him.”

The delicate hairs on Steve’s nape burn with sudden awareness; Nancy looks up at Steve, inquisitive confusion painted sweetly over her features.

“Yeah, Nance. It’s fine.” Steve assures, resigned and tired.

Billy calls out as she turns to leave, “Close the door behind you, sweetheart.”

Nancy gives Billy a defiant glare, but she does it all the same.

The door clicks shut; Steve rubs a thumb over his gauze, marvels at the sting when his nail catches on the cuts underneath. He knows Billy’s going to come after him first, but tonight-

Tonight Billy needs it more than Steve does, and Steve is willing to play that part if he has to, if he can.

Billy stands, “I waited for you.”

There it is. Said quiet, so quiet that Steve almost doesn’t hear it, doesn’t hear the disappointment that lingers in the wake of anger and frustration.

“You think I haven’t noticed when you’re wrung-out, Harrington? I noticed.” Billy runs a hand through tousled blonde curls, pulls at his hair by the roots, “I _always_ notice.”

Steve wants to bite back, say that he doesn’t _owe_ Billy anything, but he tames his tongue. He stands and digs his hands into his pockets, flinching at the scrape of the denim over his knuckles. “I needed something different.”

Billy snarls, raw and manic, “And what? You didn’t think I could give that to you?”

And Steve knows, suddenly, why Billy is angry, knows what Billy’s going through.

Knows that there are days that burn bright; the hot sun lighting red-orange on the backs of closed eyelids. It’s warm like summer, comfortable and safe. Days when the energy that shifts beneath his feet is less demanding; he doesn’t feel like he’ll shake apart, like that kinetic wave won’t send him crashing to a distant, lost shore.

But the void of sleepless nights, the feeling of bleeding, smothering intensity is always trailing on the coattails of those solar-flare moments. It’s a slow-soak phenomenon, creeping through his veins until it stretches his skin too thin; he would peel off all his layers if he could, until he was nothing but stark bone, joints grinding until he falls apart.

Billy feels that too, was fixing himself as much as he was fixing Steve. They’re both so goddamn _broken_ , so broken that they’re more likely to mix the pieces of themselves together than build anything _whole_.

Billy steps into Steve's space, eyes brilliant and febrile, looks undone, wants to unmake Steve along with him.

Adrenaline rushes up the length of Steve’s spine, roars in his ears; doubt churning ominously at the back of his mind. He swallows it down and buries it, just like he buries everything else.

Steve fists the material of Billy’s shirt, crowds him against the closed bathroom door. He leans into Billy, catches his eyes, and nods to the handle, voice hushed, “Lock it.”

Billy’s hand stretches out, flips the lock. “You trying to scare me, pretty boy?” He asks, all bullshit bravado, but the uncertainty is still there.

“You wanna know what I think, Hargrove?” Steve prompts, parroting Billy from all those nights ago.

“Go fuck your-“

“I think you’re just as fucked up as I am, and you need this just as much as I do.”

He kisses Billy then, soft and slow.

Billy tastes like cigarette smoke and shitty beer, tastes like blood and hunger; a flavor that Steve has carved into his memory, filled with nostalgia and longing. Sweet and thick like honey, like love. Billy Hargrove has never known a sweet like Steve Harrington, has never known an ache like Steve gives him.

It burns.

Everything between them burns.

“You going to let me have this? Have you?” Steve asks, lips brushing against Billy’s. They breathe on one set of lungs, pulse with one pounding heartbeat; strung together and tangled in knots, always waiting for the other to come unwind them.

Billy hooks his fingers in the belt-loops of Steve’s jeans, pulls their hips flush together. “Yeah,” he rasps, “I’ll give you anything.”

So Steve takes.

His fingers flick open the button of Billy’s pants, ease down the zipper of his fly. Listens as Billy’s breath catches when his hand slides past the elastic of Billy’s boxers, nails scratching lightly through a trail of blonde hair.

“Don’t worry,” Steve murmurs as he palms the length of Billy’s cock, “I’ll make it good.”

Billy scrapes his teeth over the meat of Steve’s shoulder, through his shirt, “Oh, I don’t doubt it, baby. You learned from the best.”

Steve huffs a laugh into the line of Billy’s throat, gliding his hand up the shaft; he doesn’t get as wet as Steve does, so it’s a little rougher, more friction.

And maybe Billy was more keyed-up than Steve recognized, because the thrust of Billy’s hips becomes less of a controlled roll and more of a frenetic rut.

“Are you close?” Steve needs to know, because it’s not going to end this quickly; he’s not going to let Billy off this easy.

“Fuck, I am.” His head rocks back against the door, eyes fluttering shut, lashes casting long shadows across his cheeks. “You do me so well, sugar.”

“That so?” Steve says, lips pressed against Billy’s ear, before he fists the base of his cock.

“You fucking bastard,” Billy groans, hips canting upward in an aborted movement. “You wanna make me suffer?”

“You’ll thank me for it,” Steve promises.

Billy smirks at him, dirty and mean, “Maybe I should get your mouth on my dick. Choke you out. Bet you’d _love_ it. That pretty, sweet mouth of yours all filled with my cum.”

Steve’s own cock jerks readily at the suggestion, full-blown blush spreading over his skin, “You know I’d swallow it. Take everything you give me, drain you dry.”

Billy’s gaze becomes serious, lips pink and kiss-swollen, “Let me come, Steve.”

Steve wrings his wrist as he strokes Billy once more, thumb tracing over the slit of his cock, “Beg me.”

Billy moans, gutteral and filthy, “Please, sweetheart. Goddamn. I can’t-,” his hips thrust once, “Steve. Steve _, please_.”

“Do it. Let me see.”

Billy’s lips part, breathless, as his release paints over Steve’s fist, staining the gauze; it’s gorgeous, warmth unfurling in Steve’s chest as he watches.

“Shit, Harrington. _Shit_.” Billy pulls Steve in for a kiss, sloppy and unhurried. It settles in Steve’s bones, no longer drifting out to sea, and neither is Billy.

“I’ll know,” Steve says, without context, but Billy understands all the same. “Don’t make me hunt you down.”

Billy flashes his teeth, canines glinting in the shitty fluorescent light, “Not if I find you first.”

**Author's Note:**

> jesus christ, how do you guys do it? this is literally the longest single thing i've written for funsies and it fucking killed me. and it's not even that long. jesus christ. also, if the party thing seemed unbelievable it's because i've never been to a party in my goddamn life so i have no accurate comparison and i'm sorry. 
> 
> the italicized lines are from toto's 'hold the line' because that song rocks hard, sue me.
> 
> title is from fall out boy's 'nobody puts baby in the corner', because i am nothing if not consistent. ugh. i mean, these assholes have a goddamn playlist now and it's fucking dumb. i hate them. 
> 
> still on tumblr under the same name, i'm real nice, and i know lots about bacteria.


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